By: Boris Tomašič
Nika Kovač and the squad from the 8 March Institute are at it again. Not with arguments and not with the law in hand, but with megaphones, fearmongering, and falsehoods that spread faster than their social media posts. A lie, a bigger lie, the biggest lie, an 8 March Institute lie. That is what you call it when someone who headed a council for the prevention of hate speech under the previous government now organises a campaign mocking victims of a real political police force in order to protect their own.
Listen to them. The referendum on the amendment to the Parliamentary Inquiry Act is supposedly an attack on everyone who dares to speak out. Bots and thugs are supposedly intimidating people, and therefore, they claim, it is acceptable to ridicule them. Meanwhile, they put on clown masks themselves and proclaim that a political police force is coming. Who is frightening whom? Which authority is persecuting whom? The law being voted on grants no new powers to law enforcement authorities. It does not investigate you, monitor you, or threaten you. It can only examine the political responsibility of holders of public office. That is stated in the first article of the law, which neither the previous nor the current amendment has changed. The commission has no other powers, either under the Constitution or under the law. A public question for Nika Kovač and Slavoj Žižek, who stated on camera that we are all at risk: where exactly does the law say that? Show the article. Not a recollection or interpretation, but the article itself.
Instead, we hear claims that the amendment abolishes the possibility of appealing to the Constitutional Court and gives politicians absolute power over anyone’s most personal data. The law says otherwise. It investigates public officials, not a neighbour, journalist, or activist who happens to wear a red ribbon. The activists explaining the law do not even know its name. They talk about a parliamentary “research project.” Research is what they do on Instagram. An inquiry is what is published in the Official Gazette.
And why all the noise? The campaign has only one purpose: to protect those who moved hundreds of millions under the previous government. This is not about a few thousand euros for posters. It is about preventing parliamentary inquiry commissions from touching certain names. That is why they invented the narrative of a political police force. We live in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. People who were victims of a real political police force are still alive here. They suffered under a system in which people disappeared, ended up on Goli Otok, were imprisoned in basements, tortured, or killed abroad. Dear little rats from the 8 March Institute do not mock those victims. The closest thing independent Slovenia has had to a political police force was the commission led by Tamara Vonta, which examined the bank accounts of witnesses without court orders rather than those of the individuals under investigation. SS-style methods, that is what you call it when you abuse the law, not when you reform it.
Nika Kovač says that they will work day and night because the result is close and because they must stop what they call a “genocidal government.” A genocidal government that proposes investigating the political responsibility of public officials? The aggressive campaign mobilises local activists, bookstores, and influencers while its organisers simultaneously complain about being restricted. Community Notes on the platform X, have already warned that statements are being taken out of context. Yet they continue. A lie does not stop when it is exposed. It stops when it is rejected at the ballot box.
Therefore, on 11 October, vote YES four times:
YES to a law that limits abuses and does not create a political police force.
YES to abolishing the licence fee.
YES to making social assistance conditional rather than unconditional.
YES to ensuring that local elections are not decided by foreign nationals.
The little rats lie. You know what to do.